The Dying Autumn
by ImpishTubist
Summary: "It is like plummeting through the air without a rope, exhilarating and terrifying all at once." A series of missing scenes from "Q2." Icheb/Q Junior, Paris/Chakotay.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Warnings: **Angst, language, sexual content

**Notes**: A series of missing scenes from "Q2." Depending on how old you think Icheb is (and how old you believe Q Junior to be in his human form) this could be read as consenting sex between minors. Avoid this fic if that idea bothers you. The practice of referring to Q Junior as "q" comes from John de Lancie's _I, Q_. This is a slight AU, as it assumes the Tom/B'Elanna relationship never happened. Feedback, as ever, is welcome.

* * *

The first time q kisses him, they are in a Jefferies Tube.

His lips are rough and chapped, and his skin smells of the distinct Starfleet-issue soap-sharp but clean, and nearly odorless unless one got too close. Icheb spends half a moment stiff with surprise before he moves his lips against q's, trying to match the other boy's easy rhythm. q, it is clear, has done this before; Icheb has not, but no one has yet been able to accuse him of not being a quick learner.

When q draws back, Icheb eyes him warily.

"What was that?" he asks suspiciously, and swipes the back of his hand across saliva-slick lips. q tosses him a cheeky grin.

"It's called a _kiss_, Borg. Surely you've read about them."

Icheb scowls. "That's not what I meant. And don't call me _Borg_. What is it you want, q?"

q reaches out and brushes Icheb's tingling lips with the tips of his-_warm, smooth_-fingers.

"You," he says solemnly, and Icheb can't help the flutter in his stomach, nor the way his heart stumbles against his ribcage.

"Is that the truth, or another lie?" he presses, trying to ignore the faint sheen of perspiration that has broken out across his upper lip, and the tremor in his hands. q's mouth quirks, one corner lifting higher than the other.

"Doesn't matter," he says smugly. "You're going to kiss me anyway."

_Hell_.

Icheb closes the gap between them in one swift movement; presses his lips to q's. His companion tilts his head, slanting their mouths together, and flicks his tongue against Icheb's bottom lip. Something flickers behind Icheb's navel, swift and electric, and he parts his lips in surprise. q puts his hands on either side of Icheb's head and pulls him closer, deepening the kiss. He tastes of mint and sapphire; of mist and rain and shattering crystal.

It is like plummeting through the air without a rope, exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

Icheb slides his arms around q's neck, and allows himself to fall.

* * *

They don't see one another often, not with q's training regimen and Icheb's studies. For thirty-six hours they sneak kisses in empty cargo bays and deserted corridors; they fumble and grope in Jefferies Tubes. q's uniform begins to serve a more practical function, and the high collar hides the marks Icheb has nipped into his neck. Icheb starts skipping regeneration cycles, losing track of time in q's borrowed quarters, and evades Seven's probing questions afterward.

They are racing a clock, rushing to cram several months' worth of exploration into mere days.

* * *

Tom Paris notices it first, and perhaps he's the only one who does. He's certainly the only one to say anything, and he teases Icheb about it in Astrometrics one morning.

"Got a bit of a crush, have we?" he asks lightly when he comes by to drop off some data from Harry Kim. He's far too cheerful for Icheb's liking, and it irks him. Doesn't Tom realize that there are only two days left until the verdict-and that whether by way of the Continuum or an amoeba, q will be leaving them?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Icheb says briskly, hoping that Tom will drop the subject.

He doesn't.

"Oh, come on, Icheb," he says, clapping him on the shoulder. "We've all been there. Nothing wrong with a bit of harmless fun, or a little fling."

Icheb nods tightly, and Tom prattles on, oblivious.

"I'm due to give you a piloting lesson. Might as well be today. Why don't you go find q; see if he wants to come along."

Icheb agrees-as though he could have done anything else when q was involved-and Tom claps him cheerfully on the shoulder.

"I'll see you both at 1400 hours."

* * *

The second time q initiates a kiss, he tastes of fire.

The line between q's brows and tension in his shoulders had told Icheb that the meeting with Q had not gone well, but he doesn't have a chance to ask his question before q has shoved him against the wall and started devouring his mouth with a series of swift, brutal kisses.

"Seal the doors," q barks at the computer when they break for air, and works his hands under Icheb's shirt. He tugs it off, and they come together again, Icheb steering q backwards in stumbling steps until his legs knock into the bed and they both go sprawling onto it.

Their kisses are clumsy and sloppy; their movements, frantic and hurried. They knock chins into shoulders and elbows into chests. Gasps are as likely to melt into moans as they are to dissolve into giggles, but they find their climaxes quickly. And then again.

q pours all of his attention into the act, fierce and attentive, as though he could not stand for it to be anything less than perfection.

As though he could not stand to fail here, as he had in every other aspect of his life.

He is the fading sunset, fighting with one last burst of orange brilliance the oncoming night.

* * *

Icheb doesn't remember the third time q kissed him, but Tom does.

He's in Sickbay when Icheb wakes up and, while Icheb is still regaining his equilibrium, explains what happened after that fateful shuttlecraft ride.

"No, don't sit up, you'll make yourself dizzy," Tom says as Icheb tries to push himself into a sitting position. He takes Icheb by the upper arm and eases him back down onto the biobed. He then pulls out a tricorder and begins to run some scans while he talks. "It was Q all along-he was the alien in the ship that fired on the two of you. He was using the whole thing as a test for q. But you're safe now; you should recover fully, if you take it easy these next few days."

He reads Icheb's unspoken question in his face, and says softly, "He hasn't been here since we figured out how to heal you. I think... I think they're in the Continuum."

"His hearing," Icheb croaks, stomach writhing, and Tom nods solemnly.

"I'm sure he'll be fine." Tom brushes the damp strands of hair off Icheb's forehead. He is subdued, and not anywhere close to his usual cheerful self. "Are you in any pain?"

Icheb's chest is tight and his heart keeps stuttering. _Butterflies_, the Doctor had told him the last time he'd had psychological symptoms and not true physical ones, but that strange sensation had sat deep in the pit of his stomach, and had been more anticipatory than anything else. _This_feeling, however... this is nauseating.

When he mentions this to Tom, the other man's face grows somber. He sets his instrument aside, and perches on a stool.

"You know, we almost lost you at first. q was a wreck. Fucking terrified. Kissed you when he thought no one else was around."

Inadvertently, Icheb brings a hand to his lips, as though he could still feel the touch.

"This goes beyond a bit of a crush, doesn't it?" Tom continues, as though Icheb would know. He's never felt anything remotely close to this, this _need_. He wants to consume q, it feels like sometimes, be with him and around him and _inside_him all the time. Never before has he felt so out-of-control, as though he's stepped off a precipice and let gravity take its course, and for the first time in months, he finds himself wishing for the order of the Collective to quiet his mind. "What is it you want, Icheb?"

"I don't understand." He doesn't know what this question has to do with the persistent pain in his chest, but Tom has never led him astray before.

"Ideal outcome," Tom says. "In this situation. What would it be? Plausibility aside."

"Him," Icheb whispers automatically, readily, and Tom nods as though he'd been expecting that answer, even though Icheb hadn't known he was going to give it until the word was out of his mouth.

"This may come as a shock to you," Tom says, attempting a weak smile that isn't returned, "but I fell for someone once. Like that. Like _this_. Hard, and quickly. Felt like I was drowning, only it wasn't ever something I wanted to be rescued from. Know what I mean?"

Icheb nods hesitantly.

"Yeah, thought so," Tom says quietly. He picks up a cool cloth and wipes away the perspiration that has broken out across Icheb's forehead in the few minutes they've been talking. "Your body's reacting to the cure; it's all right. You're going to run a fever for about six hours, and then it'll all be over."

He puts aside the cloth, and Icheb feels marginally better.

"So what happened?" he mutters finally.

Tom considers him carefully for a moment.

"Nothing," he says softly. "We cared for one another, make no mistake. _Wanted_each other so badly, you'd think the universe was about to end. But nothing ever came of it."

"Why tell me this?" Icheb whispers.

"So you realize that he cares for you," Tom says quietly, resting a hand on Icheb's shoulder, "and that it's not going to be enough."

* * *

The next time q kisses Icheb, he is permanently human.

The Continuum's verdict has just come through, and as a result q tastes of ash; of fading leaves and bitter resignation. From the intensity of his kisses, it's clear he's trying to lose himself, completely and utterly, in Icheb.

They fit themselves onto q's bed, which is so small that it barely can sleep one, let alone them both, but that didn't stop them the last time and it won't stop them now. q's hands wander over Icheb, fingers dipping into the hollow of his throat and trailing down his chest. He shifts so that Icheb is on his back and then leans over him, memorizing with lips and teeth and tongue every inch of Icheb's bare skin. Icheb pulls him back up and kisses him thoroughly while q's hand slips between his legs, opening him up with slick and probing fingers.

Icheb presses his lips to q's neck, finds his pulse point and teases it gently while q enters him with painstaking slowness. His thrusts are languid and sure, but reserved, and he keeps them both just on the brink of release until Icheb is panting and clawing at his back, whispering, _"Dammit_, q, _please." _

It's only then that q changes the angle and pacing of his strokes, snapping his hips with each thrust and sending them both quickly crashing over the edge.

They don't speak for a long while after, not until Icheb ventures, "I'm sure the captain will let you stay here."

q stares at him blankly.

"But I don't _want _to stay here." He noses Icheb's neck, kisses the underside of his jaw, and adds, "I want to be a Q. I want to go back to the Continuum."

Icheb kisses him again in order to stop the painful words, tasting copper and water and salt.

He is the dying autumn, resigned to the fact that winter is approaching.

* * *

Days later, Icheb is in the cargo bay.

Naomi has decided that she wants to build her own one-person shuttlecraft and, stretched as his own nerves are at the moment, he hasn't the strength to dampen her enthusiasm. He will let her find out on her own that it won't work.

He rummages around in the containers for spare parts. They are filled mostly with old circuits and pieces of bulkhead, nothing that _Voyager _needs at the moment but also parts they are wary to discard, should they need them down the road. This bit of respite, away from Naomi's chatter, gives him a moment to think-something he hasn't had a chance to do since that quiet night in Sickbay after he regained consciousness.

Icheb has seen q only a handful of times since the Continuum's verdict, and they don't spend a lot of time talking during their encounters. Icheb knows that q finally decided to ask the captain for permission to remain on board, and to continue his training. Her agreement has somewhat stymied his brooding, but not done away with it completely.

But q still approaches their lovemaking with tender playfulness, and Icheb knows it is genuine.

Icheb also knows that, given the choice, q would rather be elsewhere.

"Tom!"

Icheb starts violently at the voice-Commander Chakotay's-and ducks quickly behind a container, crouching so that he is out of sight. Lost has he had been in his thoughts, Icheb hadn't noticed Chakotay breeze into the cargo bay on the heels of Tom, who looks furious. They are so absorbed in one another that they apparently didn't register Icheb's presence before he managed to hide, and he watches them now through the crack of space between the containers.

Tom makes it nearly to the other side of the room before Chakotay grabs his arm and spins him around. His momentum carries them both a few steps further, and Tom's back collides with the wall. Chakotay doesn't release his elbow, and Icheb watches from his vantage point between the containers as they square off.

"Enough," Tom hisses at Chakotay. _"Enough. _This has to stop, Chakotay, I can't-I _won't _have it anymore! It's a mistake."

Chakotay's face darkens. Tom tugs his arm from Chakotay's grip, and the Commander lets him go without a fight. When he speaks, his voice is low and tinged with hurt.

"You weren't behaving the other night as though you thought this was a mistake."

"No, because I'm as much a fool as you are," Tom says bitterly. "I realize that. I took you into my bed twelve hours after we first met; _after _I found out about Seska. I didn't let that stop me, and neither did you. You'd claimed you'd had a fight with her, and I accepted it. But within less than a month, you had stopped using excuses to sleep with me, and I'd stopped needing them."

"Tom -"

But Tom barrels on, heedless of Chakotay's soft protest.

"You even spent the first night _on this ship_ in my quarters, while she slept two doors away. She never found out about our... _liaisons_, or you never told her, because if she had known I would have been shot dead the moment I stepped onto her Kazon ship five years ago. And that's fine; I didn't particularly care at the time. But it's hard to be the _piece on the side _when the main... _course _has been dead for four years. I'm _tired_of it, Chakotay."

Chakotay shifts, crowding Tom up against the wall, and their faces are centimeters apart.

"Tell me you don't want this," Chakotay murmurs finally, and when he moves in for a brutal kiss, Tom gives as good as he gets. But he's the one who breaks it first, and Chakotay lets out a frustrated huff of breath.

"Don't be a fool, of course I do," Tom snaps. "But you won't look at me afterward. You won't be seen with me. Hell, you won't even _talk _to me. This isn't enough, Chakotay. Not anymore."

Chakotay says nothing, just stares at Tom, dumbfounded. Tom finally pushes him away.

"Go," he says, and he looks as surprised saying the words as Chakotay appears to be at hearing them. Icheb surmises that Tom has rarely-if ever-made that request of the Commander. _"Go_, Chakotay, get out of here."

Chakotay gives him one long, final look, and then leaves.

Tom runs a hand through hair that had been mussed by Chakotay's fingers, trying to smooth it back into place, and then pinches the bridge of his nose.

_"__Fuck_," he whispers to himself. "Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Dammit, Paris."

He's about to leave when Icheb's legs give out from the lack of circulation. He goes sprawling to the ground, the equipment he had been holding spilling from his hands. There is a tremendous pause after the last of the clattering noises fades away, and Icheb holds his breath.

"Icheb," Tom announces, more a statement than a venture.

Icheb stumbles to his feet, and then steps out from behind the container.

"I hadn't intended to eavesdrop," he begins, but Tom holds up a hand, at once stopping his words and beckoning him closer.

Tom's face is tight, skin stretched taut over his cheekbones. His eyes appear bruised and his mouth has disappeared into a thin line. He has been on duty for sixteen hours, and is due back on in less than eight-Icheb reads the duty roster each morning, and they have been short-staffed as of late.

"So," Tom says as Icheb approaches. "Now you know."

Icheb nods mutely.

"Like I said," Tom says, resigned, "sometimes caring just isn't enough. What I want from him... he can't give."

"I don't want that," Icheb blurts, and means, _I don't want to be like you_.

Tom gives a sad, crooked smile, and reaches for his shoulder.

"We don't always get what we want, Icheb."

It's an echo of a conversation they had had only a few months before, when Icheb's world had been turned on its side twice-first when he discovered his parents were still alive and that he was to go live with them, and then when he found out that they were responsible for his assimilation. He was a weapon, born for the sole purpose of genocide. His parents didn't want _him_, they wanted a tool. An instrument of destruction.

"I know it's not the same, not by a long shot," Tom had said at the time, "but if it helps... my father didn't want me, either."

_We don't always get what we want, Icheb_.

And then Tom's arms are around him, and Icheb is sure they're the only reason he's still upright. He sags against Tom, accepting the loose embrace, and wishes he had never met q. Wishes that the captain had never found his parents.

It's difficult to miss something you didn't know existed.

"It'll be all right," Tom murmurs into his hair. "Someday... it'll all work out."

Icheb doesn't know which of them he's trying to convince.

* * *

q doesn't say goodbye.

Icheb is in Astrometrics when Tom comes by the next morning. He frowns, because Tom-according to the duty roster-should be halfway through his shift on the Bridge. He hasn't come with any data PADDs, either, so at first his presence is a mystery.

"I had a private word with the captain," Tom says quietly, gently, and Icheb suddenly feels lightheaded as dread sweeps over him in a cold wave. "Thought you should hear it directly from someone, before you found out secondhand."

"He's gone," Icheb says dully. Tom nods tightly, an uncomfortable jerk of his head.

"Q had a word with the Continuum, apparently, and they restored his powers. q left almost immediately. I'm... I'm sorry, Icheb."

Icheb nods tightly, unable to summon his voice, and turns his back on the Lieutenant. He tries to return to his work, though his vision is too blurry now to read his console and he's finding it difficult to breathe. He knew, he _knew _this is the choice q would make, and yet -

- and yet, he hadn't ever believed q would be given the _chance _to make it.

He rests a hand on his chest, the heat from his palm seeping through his shirt, and tries to calm his painfully sputtering heart. There is a soft _whoosh _from behind him as the doors open again, and his voice comes rushing back even before he decides what he's going to say.

"How do you make it stop?"

There is a long moment of silence, and Icheb begins to fear that Tom has left, though he can't bring himself to turn around and confirm his suspicions. But then an arm wraps around his shoulders and Tom pulls him against his side, accepting the burden of Icheb's weight as he goes weak with the shock of it all.

"Soon as I figure that out," Tom says quietly, "you'll be the first to know."


End file.
